Fever
by hellorojo
Summary: Mugen is drunk and Fuu has a fever. Both of them say things that they shouldn't. Oneshot, rated for language and sexual content. Mugen/Fuu.


**Summary**: Mugen is drunk and Fuu has a fever. Both of them say things that they shouldn't. Oneshot, Mugen/Fuu.

**Pairing**: Mugen x Fuu

**FEVER**

Walking was _hard_. Particularly walking up a hill riddled with tree roots and vines and discarded branches in the dark while you were pretty fucking drunk. For all of his prowess and athleticism, when you got a few shots in him Mugen was as clumsy and uncoordinated as any other drunk out there. He liked to think that he could hold his liquor, but it was all bullshit; the truth was he was phenomenally _average _and not the ultra-macho tank he liked to make himself out to be.

Presently, he'd had far too much to drink, and had fallen so many times on his trek up to the little hotel they were staying at that he was essentially crawling up the hill, clumsy fingers grabbing at brambles and feet nearly sliding out of his sandals several times. He felt out of breath and exhausted and was entirely pissed off about the geography he found himself in, but still, the journey _down _the hill and into town had been more than worth while. Though the hotel was perched in a quaint, secluded little clearing, the hustle and bustle of the town below was just the sort of scene Mugen craved to be a part of.

Like any respectable town it had a nice brothel, and it had been the first place he'd gone. The Madame (who wasn't bad herself for an older chick, he'd noticed appreciatively when she'd greeted him) had set him up just to his liking, and for a pretty decent price: he'd gotten to spend his whole evening with sixteen-year-old twins with great tits and the best damn back bends he'd ever seen. Sure, he'd spent all the money that they had, but it wasn't like he wasn't justified. Fuu had come down with a nasty fever two days ago, so bad that she was hallucinating for a while there, and Jin – asshole that he was – had spent almost half of what they had on a doctor for her and the medicine the guy had prescribed.

It pissed him off just to think about it. What the fuck did she need some expensive medicine for, anyway? It wasn't like she was dying or something…she'd get better in a few days if they just let her be, for sure. So he'd felt totally justified in spending what was left on food and booze and the Funbag Twins during the course of the night, and he reasoned now that if Jin even attempted to give him shit about it he'd punch him in the face.

He was wheezing by the time he got to the top of the hill, and he continued to trudge towards the suite they were staying in. Connected rooms, one for each of them. Fuu's was the first one, the one you had to go through to get to the other two, and he groaned aloud as he reached the door. He hoped she didn't give him any shit or ask him any questions. That was all he needed: a perfect night, completely fucked up by that whining, high-pitched voice of hers rattling through his ears.

Attempting to be smooth and quiet but failing miserably, Mugen loudly slid the door open, wincing at the grating sound of wood against splintering, creaking wood. He slipped his feet from his shoes and stepped inside, each movement seemingly causing the floor to groan even louder in protest. When he'd slid the door closed he glanced over his shoulder to see if he'd woken her up, double vision making him dizzy and a little sick to his stomach.

There was one lantern lit in the corner of the room, and the flickering light of the flame created just enough illumination so that he could see she was still asleep, her chest rising and falling rhythmically beneath a thick blanket, her body turned slightly to the side. Mugen breathed a side of relief and turned fully around, stumbling as little as he could manage as he made his way across the room. A sloppy grin formed on his face and he felt himself relax again as he realized just how much better things were when Fuu was unconscious.

And then, just as his hand found the handle to his door, things went to shit.

"Mugen?"

He cringed, his lanky body tensing instantly at the all-too-familiar sound of her voice. She was quieter than she normally was, and her voice seemed different; distant, sort of far away. But he didn't get his hopes up. Knowing Fuu, she'd been yelling at him within thirty seconds, lecturing him on and on with her face screwed up in that angry way he could never in a million years take seriously.

"Mugen?" she repeated, her voice still shaky and almost _weak._

"Yeah, what?" he snapped, not facing her. His eyes were still fixed on the shadowy form of the door handle, his fist wrapped around it, poised and ready to scram if he needed to.

He heard the blankets shift behind him and could feel her looking at him, those big brown eyes boring holes into his back, only blinking when they began to water. "What're you doing?" her voice asked him, and in his drunken haze he could just barely notice that her words were slurred almost as much as his were.

He made a low, growling sound in the back of his throat, feeling his annoyance begin to perk up. "Wha's it fuckin' look like?" Mugen growled. "I'm gonna crash. It's late and I'm tired."

For a moment, there was silence, though he could still feel her eyes on him, curious and unblinking. Still, he figured it was now or never, and he started to pull on the handle, sliding the door open a bit – but, unfortunately, just a little too late.

"Wait."

Fuck.

He glanced at her over his shoulder, eyebrows furled and eyes narrowed in annoyance. "What?" he snapped again, the hostility in his voice almost palpable. For a few beats she just continued to look at him, until he turned all the way around and folded his arms across his chest. "The fuck do you want?" he demanded impatiently, his voice heated and uninviting.

Fuu shifted in bed again, and he noticed how pale she looked in the light, how her skin looked washed out and nearly transparent. How her loose brown hair looked more unkempt than he'd ever seen it before. How droplets of sweat gleamed on the skin of her face, how her eyes looked distant and clouded over…how she was just wearing a thin white cotton slip, and how the strap on the right had fallen off of the narrow peak of her shoulder when she'd sat up to look at him better.

"Can you…come over here?" she finally asked, and Mugen cocked his head to the side. "Just for a little bit?"

He regarded her suspiciously for a moment, blinking twice and shifting his weight to his right hip. "What for?"

The tiniest of smiles appeared on her face, her pale pink lips curving upward just so, and she gave a little shrug of her shoulders. "I dunno," she told him, her voice dreamy. "'Cause I want to talk to you."

He should have said no. In fact, he shouldn't have said anything at all; he should have turned directly around, finished opening to door and left, preferably slamming the door closed behind him with all the force he could muster. He'd had a good night – scratch that, he'd had a _damn _good night, and he knew full well that extended interaction with Fuu undoubtedly would just end up making him pissed off and disgruntled. He should have said fuck you, should have told her that he didn't care that she wanted to talk. Should have done a lot of things.

But, of course, he didn't.

With a heavy sigh Mugen strode forward to close the few feet between them, stumbling when he moved to sit down and falling a bit harder than he'd intended to. She didn't seem to notice, though, her half-there gaze instead taking in his torso, his neck. When he'd stopped squirming and had gotten in a moderately comfortable position he looked back at her, noting the low cut of the slip and how even now it didn't look like she had any tits. Again, there was silence between the two of them, and though it didn't seem to bother her, it felt thick and heavy to Mugen; almost suffocating. He glared at her, elbows on his knees, trying to meet her eyes but failing.

"Well?" he demanded harshly. "What the hell do you want? Speak up or I'm gettin' the fuck out of here, I don't need to deal with this shit from you." He didn't know why he was even bothering. She was _delirious_, you could see it in her eyes. She wouldn't remember if he'd left the room without a word or done a fucking song and dance show by the time morning came, in all probability. But he'd just gotten comfortable, and he could feel the fevered heat radiating off of her body, and he sort of liked how her bare shoulder looked when the candle flickered in a certain way.

Slowly, Fuu's eyes trailed upwards, but they still didn't meet his; instead, he realized she was focusing on his lips, and without thinking he began to worry his lower one between his teeth. She tilted her head, expression blank (or something he just couldn't read, he wasn't really sure), and finally opened her mouth to speak.

"What's sex like?"

Well, _that _was unexpected.

He stared at her, his face as vacant as hers, eyebrows now raised slightly. "…Are you serious?" Mugen couldn't help but ask.

A soft, short-lived giggle sprung forth from Fuu's lips, but quickly it and her smile subsided to something like genuine, almost childlike curiosity. "Yeah," she replied with an affirmative nod. "I've never done it, and I know you have, and I want to know what it's like. So I'm asking you."

She paused, lifting her hand to point at him - but her index finger shook badly, and so she instead offered an ambiguous gesture with her wrist. "That's where you were, right? Out with a girl?" she continued. "You smell like booze and perfume, y'know. Plus, you've got lipstick…" And she lifted that slender hand again, this time up to his face, and when her fingers ghosted over the corner of his mouth he felt his shoulders go taught. "There," she finished, letting her fingers trail down his chin before her hand fell back to her side, palm splaying out on the wooden floor as she shifted her slight weight.

Mugen lifted his own hand up, carelessly wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, the stubble on his chin scratching at the hard, calloused flesh. His steely eyes were fixed upon her as he leaned backwards slightly, kicking his legs out flat in front of him. He had expected her to get angry at him about going to a brothel - she always did, after all - but right now, in her fevered sense of delirium, she didn't seem to care. "I told those fuckin' bitches I didn't want no keepsakes," he grumbled, wiping his mouth three more times and then tilting his head to Fuu for assurance that his face was clean. She offered him a dreamy little smile and a nod, and he let his hand fall back down to his bony knee, scratching at the top of his rail-thin shin.

"Mugen," she breathed after a moment, her eyelids fluttering, and he realized he liked how she addressed him just then, with her voice so gentle and lilting and her thick eyelashes batting when she spoke the consonants.

Fuu leaned forwards slightly, the strap of her slip falling down past what little meat there was on her shoulder, so that the fabric caught at the crook of her elbow. Mugen noted the gauntness of her collarbone, how stark the shadows were in the hollow of her throat, and how her skin shimmered when the lantern flickered from the sheer layer of sweat covering her body. A few strands of her hair were stuck to the moisture of her flushed cheek, curling with the shape of her face and curving towards her pink lips. They were parted, and he could hear a labored quality in her breathing, like something was caught in her throat; but she didn't seem to notice, or, at least, she didn't care.

"Tell me," she whispered, her voice so unassuming and yet, somehow, insistent. "Please. I wanna know; I want you to tell me what it's like."

His glossy eyes roamed her face for a moment before trailing downwards, following the contours of her neck, to her shoulders, until his gaze was fixed upon the thin, flimsy strip of fabric caught at her elbow. It probably would have been gentlemanly for him to pull it back up over her shoulder, to cover up the flesh covering her clavicle, and maybe even to wrap the blanket around her. That's probably what fucking _Jin _would have done; for all his reserved stoicism, he understood chivalry and manners and what it meant to have gender roles.

Mugen understood gender roles, too, to an extent: women were around to fuck, give birth to sons who'd turn out just like their fathers no matter how fervently they insisted otherwise, and make really, really good food. Men were around to do whatever they wanted, because, fuck it - they were _men. _It was the concept of having a duty to take care of women and protect their honor (what the fuck was _honor, _anyhow?) that Mugen had never understood, and right now, sitting across from a fevered Fuu with her clothes slowly slipping off and her mind leading her mouth to ask things she'd regret suited him just fine, thanks.

"You really wanna know?" he asked, tilting his head backwards to look at the ceiling before she even had a chance to nod; it wasn't a real question. He could tell that she wanted to know, and that she wanted to know from _him._ That was normal, he supposed; who the hell else would she ask? _Jin_? That fucking moron didn't know jack shit about any of it, and Mugen guessed that when he'd been with that one bitch - the one he'd broken out of the brothel in the pouring gloomy rain - the four-eyed loser had been on the bottom. What a pussy.

"I knew you were a virgin, girlie," he said quietly, his voice hoarse and weathered, as if he were a sagely old man instead of a vagrant not even out of his teenage years. "I can always tell 'em. See, chicks who ain't ever had a man before, they're different. Look different, act different, talk different. You, you've always got your arms real close to you, at your sides, like you're afraid of people looking' atcha too hard - always ready to cover up. And you're clumsy, too - can't sway while you walk to save your damn life. And you get all wound-up whenever anybody fucks somebody, or talks about somebody or if you even think they might be thinking about fucking somebody - 'specially if that somebody's you."

He smirked a little, his eyes still fixed upon the ceiling. There was a hole in the roof, not too big, but even through that little hole he saw more stars than he could count. He could feel her eyes on him, but he didn't look at her; Mugen felt, for some reason, that if he did he wouldn't be able to tell her what she wanted…that upon seeing those wide brown eyes so full of innocence he would lose his nerve.

"But a chick who's been around," he went on, a certain wolfish quality in his voice and his grin that usually made Fuu go beet red. "That's a different story. A girl like that, she knows - fuckin' _knows _- that men want her. She puts on lipstick and paints up her face 'cause she knows it's hot, and she don't shy away from dudes giving her attention. She walks different - even broads like you who ain't got nothin' to show off, when they walk down the road they're swaying their hips and they know you're lookin' at 'em. The ain't afraid to touch ya, either; bitches like that'll make a move on a guy they want 'cause they're sure they can get 'em."

Mugen slowly lowered his head to look at her. She seemed to have moved closer, and he was surprised - damn, she was just _full _of surprises tonight - that she didn't seem offended. Fuu was the kind of girl to take everything personally, get upset over nothing, make mountains upon mountains out of molehills. Now, though, she just looked _serene _- and fascinated, too. She was hanging on his every word, not butting in with her holier-than-thou let-me-say-my-piece I'm-right-you're-wrong bullshit. She just _listened. _

Suddenly, he felt something sort of like nervousness.

"I mean, whaddayah want me to say?" he asked her, voice grating, because Mugen didn't _get _nervous and she was a bitch for making him antsy.

Fuu blinked at him once, twice, and the hand that wasn't pressed flat against the cool floor found its way to her loose, unkempt hair. "I just," she began, pushing a few loose strands behind her ear, missing the bit that was stuck to her cheek, her hand lingering by her face for a moment. "I just want you to tell me what it's like."

"I ain't good with words."

"I know." He glared at her sharply and she gave him a faint smile. "I was kind of counting on that. You…you're always honest, Mugen, even if what's honest isn't pretty or nice. If I wanted to hear someone tell me about it using metaphors about flowers blooming or something I would have asked Jin."

He looked at her suspiciously for a moment, trying to figure out if this whole thing was just a big fucking trap. Christ, he was drunk enough that he wouldn't notice, even though when it came to people trying to trip him up he was usually very perceptive. The silence was heavy between them; Mugen could feel the warmth of her breath before it cooled into the surrounding air. He pulled his legs back so he was sitting Indian-style in front of her, only half-aware of how close she was to him, only subconsciously realizing that he'd inched towards her, too.

"I dunno what it's like for a chick," he muttered. "I know a lotta you bitches got all sorts of, y'know, _feelings _about it and what-not. But for me? I killed a whole lot of people in my life. a whole lotta people who were supposed to be tougher than anybody. When you kill somebody, 'specially somebody who's better than you…that's one hell of a feeling. Like you're the most powerful thing in the whole world. Nobody can touch you; all anybody should do is get on their knees and worship you." He looked up at her, meeting her eyes and holding them with his. "When you fuck somebody, that feeling don't even compare. When they're down there underneath you and they're begging you like the whole world depends on you makin' them cum, like all that matters is you…then you're a God."

He watched her watch him, never breaking eye contact; he'd wait for her to look away, get all embarrassed, her cheeks going bright red like they always did. But she didn't. Instead, she held his eyes with equal intensity, her chest rising and falling heavily, that teasing strap of clothing still hooked at her elbow. She didn't even blink.

"Nobody's ever kissed me before."

Wham. He was fucking _stunned. _Since when did she talk to him about any of this shit? She knew better, for Christ's sake. All he'd do was make fun of her; not now, of course, certainly not now, when she was so close and so bare and he was too drunk to walk straight. But in the morning he'd bring it up at just the right moment to maximize her embarrassment, as was his way. Just because this was the most revealing and personal thing she'd ever said to him (though, to be honest, he'd always suspected as much) didn't mean anything would change.

So Mugen snorted, and that was all for now. He realized too late that he'd been the one to look away first, and he cursed himself furiously for it. He was so busy getting angry that he didn't notice her eyelashes flutter as she looked down, briefly, to the floor, nor did he see them lift again, nor did he see her slowly wet her bottom lip with her tongue before she spoke.

"Can you...will you kiss me?"

His whole body went rigid, and for a moment Mugen could have sworn that he'd completely forgotten basic motor functions. He jerked to look at her so quickly that his neck cracked and he didn't have a chance to make sure he didn't look as completely fucking _blown away _as he actually was. It took him at least forty seconds - forty whole seconds, each of them echoing with the rushing of the blood in his head - to remember how to move his mouth, and ten more seconds to realize he looked like a complete fucking idiot, gaping at her like that. Instantly he looked away, narrow eyebrows furling again, forcing a smirk - God, he hoped it looked devil-may-fucking-care - across his face.

"Bitch, I wouldn't touch you with a ten-foot pole," he scoffed, and although he didn't look at her he could feel it in the air as her head slowly dropped, hanging heavy with an almost palpable sense of rejection. Usually, he would have felt empowered.

Right now, though, all he felt was regret and guilt.

He slowly looked back at her, and as he took in her crumpled form a lump formed in his throat. What the fuck was she so upset about, anyway? She couldn't stand him. He was a fucking animal, and she had it in her head that she was classy as shit and that he was dozens of levels below her haughty little self. And it wasn't like it fucking _mattered _that she was upset; she was probably still delirious and she didn't know what she was saying. _She _was the asshole for throwing all of these pseudo-philosophical questions at him all of a sudden, expecting him to tell her what she wanted even though he wasn't that kind of a guy. Why should he care if she got all boo-hooey over nothing at all?

And even as he tried to rationalize that she was the bad guy, he realized that the regret he was feeling didn't really stem from guilt. Mugen was a man who went after what he wanted, and in rejecting her, he'd inadvertently punished himself. Because, even though he would never admit it, not in a millions years…all he wanted to do was comply with her request.

So he did.

He caught her off-guard, his movements fluid and quick, though certainly lacking tact or grace (as was everything Mugen ever did). In what seemed like an instant (and yet, somehow, a careful lifetime) Fuu felt his calloused palm take the side of her face, his long fingers snaking into her hair and pressing against the back of her skull. His other hand grasped her bare shoulder, and she broke out in goosebumps at the coolness of his palm against her searing flesh. She barely had time to look up as he pulled her sharply towards him and kissed her hard, pulling her body flush against his, the hand on her shoulder running down the skin of her back until his fingers disappeared beneath the white material of her slip. Fuu melted into the kiss, her eyelids once again fluttering closed, her body shivering when he took her bottom lip between his teeth and bit down.

It didn't take long for Mugen to remember who it was he was kissing, despite how plastered he was, and he pulled his lips away from hers (he could have sworn he heard her _whimper _in protest). His fingers slowly threaded out of her hair, and his hand crept back up from beneath the cotton of her slip. Her eyes stayed closed for several moments after he pulled away, and when he pulled his hands away from her completely they only opened half-way, like she was stuck part-way in a dream. For a while neither of them said a word; but then, Mugen's inebriated brain kicked up again and he managed to pull himself up to his feet, struggling for balance only briefly before looking down at her.

"There," he said, smirking for just a moment. "Don't say I never did nothin' for ya."

He turned and stumbled to the door to his room, not looking back as he slid it open and stepped through. But after he closed the door behind him, he watched her silhouette through the paneling until she went to slip, his fingers touching his own lips ever so gently, the aftershocks of her kiss echoing in his bones.


End file.
